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Here's an article from an AP reporter who says Syrian rebels told him it was the rebels who released the dreaded chemicals. And, furthermore, that the Saudis were the ones who gave the rebels the gaseous goods in the first place:
http://www.mintpressnews.com/witnesses-of-gas-attack-say-saudis-supplied-rebels-with-chemical-weapons/168135/
This is sectarian civil war.
We've no business getting involved at all as it'll only make the vicious cycle even worse leading to more killing fields,
Just like all other trouble spots (Afghanistan, Egypt, etc.) with many groups (Sunni, Shiite, Al-Queda, Christian, etc.etc.) all unable to live peacefully together, regardless which side you may want to support, the more you get involved, the worse it becomes with intensified violence/killing, regardless which side you may want to support, either one side or the other will blame you.
The attitude of our leaders is clear: they don't care what the people think, they will be moving ahead with more spending on wars, continuing to worsen the deficit, in the end, only further weaken national finances.
There're tons of domestic problems (unemployment, debt-ceiling, deficits, sequester, social problems.etc) that US must be focusing & we need all the limited resources to fix all these domestic problems.
After the illegitimate war in Iraq, the American people are sick & tired of military action in these trouble spots.
Many rebels are being radicalized by Al Qaeda and U.S. is being goaded into taking the moral high ground, and thereby doing someone else's dirty work
Stay out of Syria, getting entangled in Syria is a BIG MISTAKE!

The background is certainly helpful in assessing the situation. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of non-citizen deaths have never swayed any war planner one way or another. Nor shamed a politician.

Messing up Syria is clearly in US national interests. Legitimacy would be a nice gift wrap, but Sam will take the gift anyway.

The only thing that will delay or stop this is air and missile defense.

1) Sachs is no more qualified than you or I to opine on this topic. Read his bio--his expertise is entirely in different areas.

2) Whatever "responsibility the US and others may have for turning Syria into a killing field" is completely off-topic to this conversation.

3) The man writes from the standpoint of pure fantasy. The US didn't try to overthrow Assad--Assad's people rose up after having seen the example of Arab Spring, and Assad reacted violently to try to put them back down. The US had absolutely no role in any of that.

4) Sachs asserts that the US has had a policy goal of regime change, when that is flatly not the case and was explicitly refused as a goal by the President *yesterday*.

5) Sachs suggests that the US has "used Syria as a proxy against Iran", when the US has had NO relationship with Syria for years, and Iran is Assad's closest ally after Russia.

6) He also suggests that the "UN peace process" can be "restarted". The fact is that with Russia and China holding vetoes in the Security Council the UN is and will remain paralyzed. It is not even remotely possible that the UN can be a vehicle for resolving this conflict.

7) Sachs refuses to address the actual issue, which is the use of chemical weapons. Hitting him is for that reason--not picking sides in the civil war, not trying to topple him. Just PUNISHING him for an egregious violation of an international proscription on usage of WMDs, by striking his facilities and, at best, his family and key supporters.

Sachs simply doesn't not know what he is talking about. He can be--and should be--ignored.

I fully agree with the writer.
Continuing with previous, instinctive "knee-jerk" reactions will lead to the same result, destabilization, more bloodshed and humiliating retreat as it has been happening without exception in recent years.
But most importantly in a globally interconnected and interdependent world there can be simply no unilateral action by even the "strongest" nation, or by a small group of nations as "allies".
Such action in an integral system is destined to fail and cause more destruction by default.
It is going to be a difficult process but all nations and individuals have to understand and learn that even the simplest problems can only be solved by "round table" discussions involving all those affected by the issue, starting from family level to global, international conflicts.
Any other attempt loses credibility and destabilizes the interconnected and interdependent system.
We still anchor ourselves in methods and tools that seemingly worked in a fragmented, isolated, polarized system with 2-3 powerful nations, when there existed developed or developing, friends and allies against enemies and foes.
But such a world does not exist any longer.
Individuals and nations will remain distinct and unique, but since they are all chained to each other in an integral system, like finding themselves on the same sinking ship in a heavy storm, they will have to learn to rise above the differences and start working together for a common purpose, goal, survival.

The rise of unilateralism at the slightest hint of War and the waning of the same when Peace is about to return leaves a sobering thought about the agenda, hidden or otherwise. Overthrowing regimes, strengthening Opposition and escalating the conflicts in a region where there is not one but many countries who do not play ball, makes a striking case for self-righteousness, that which has left many scars; the world would be better off if less is focused in this region and political processes are left to function on their own, leaving the regions' people to decide their fate, whatever good or bad that it entails.

Apart from prospects of business there are no other prospects, if at all, for those outside of the region.

I don't believe there is an interest in finding any evidence about chemical attacks because that would risk of discovering the true origin of chemical weapons. The end is determined; only goal right now is to justify the means...

Yes It has been hard to understand The Obama Administration's handling of many issues lately with international reach. I guess our problem is that we assumed that he would, finally, promote the interest of his country and maybe the world. It may have been our desire for such actions that tricked us.